Freedom

Amaiweee!  Amaiweee!

Women and children weep,

Sitting on the dry, baked earth of the land that was once theirs.

Someone has died.

Their eyes red-rimmed, the men sit solemnly on stumps of trees and look on.

They can’t afford the beer that used to be a man’s traditional mask of grief.

They are mourning Freedom for the second time.

The first time she died, she was gone for aeons.

She languished in prison.

Her name was poison to anyone who spoke of her,

As the colonial masters corralled her people onto small prison plots like the cattle they kept.

When the land had soaked up enough blood,

The spirits of her ancestors released her.

Freedom was free.

How the people sang and laughed and celebrated with Bob Marley.

Our Dear Leader was born that day in 1980.

He was more cunning than the colonial master.

He dressed up Freedom in finery that blinded people to his wickedness.

Soon, Freedom was his.

She could walk among the people

But only if they didn't criticize Our Dear Leader.

She no longer smiled or looked at ease.

When the people asked what ailed her, she could not speak.

Freedom had become a slave.

Soon the people could not see her except when Our Dear Leader exhibited her.

Only he and his deserved to be graced by her presence.

Thirty-three years passed with less and less glimpse of Freedom.

Her name could not be spoken, except in darkness amongst trusted friends.

Hope for Freedom was fading.

She was ill and isolated with only a few people brave enough to fight for her.

Friends from far and near pleaded with Our Dear Leader on her behalf to no avail.

The end came when all the people of the land pleaded for Freedom.

For three days they waited for news about her,

Praying and hoping that she was alive.

Our Dear Leader gave them an empty coffin.

The one in which Freedom was to be buried.

An eerie silence now engulfs the whole country.

The women and children have exhausted their tears.

No one has seen Freedom, dead or alive.

A voice whispers from that subconscious place between life and death.

“Chinyarara, mwana wangu.  Usacheme ini ndiripo.  Calm yourself my child.  Don't cry, I am right here.”

Freedom is not dead.  We will meet again.

Spring

It arrives with a burst of colour,

flowers popping up here and there.

One at a time, they brave the chill still lingering in the air,

refusing to accept defeat and slowly growing in number,

until the grey sky is forced to turn blue and warmer.

It is time for spring.

In England, the Daffodil is the first to show,

shamelessly flaunting its golden colour.

But it is also the first to die,

a high price to pay for a few days of freedom.

But others will take its place and live longer.

It is time for spring.

In another world, spring is Arab.

It starts with one person who longs for freedom.

He makes the ultimate sacrifice with his life,

And in his place, others rise up in city squares.

They have had enough and want a taste of freedom.

It is time for an Arab spring.

In Zimbabwe there is no spring.

Any flower that blooms is plucked out of the ground,

lest others follow and force the sky to turn blue.

More than twenty years of winter and not a sign of spring to come.

Perhaps all the flowers have died in the protracted darkness.

When will it be time for spring?

13 March 2013

Zimbabwe's Independence Day

The once brightly-coloured flag hangs glumly from the mast post,

battered and torn by the winds of discontent.

The colours have faded until no one remembers what they mean.

The Green that stood for agricultural and rural areas is unrecognisable;

                resembling a battle for land by one powerful black man against a poor one

The Yellow of mineral wealth is dirtied by the scuffles of diamond evictions and greed.

                Chiyadzwa skies echo the cries of the dispossessed and the dead.

The flow of Red blood did not stop after the second Chimurenga,

                it flows secretly in rivers and caves where disappeared people’s bodies are hidden.

The Black of heritage and ethnicity has faded into different shades,

                it is brother against brother to the death.

The White Triangle of peace mocks me,

                its size symbolic of how little it matters now.

The red star of communism is hardly visible but this is just as well,

                For it is rather ironic in this now capitalist state.

I watch the Zimbabwe Bird flutter at the pinnacle,

                an eagle that is eating its own eggs until the future is gone.

I wipe down the tears in my eyes as the flag is battered by another storm:

Rain drips down from it like the tears of a nation completely sodden with grief and despair.

Kakistocratic Birthday

Gather round me children of my country.

See?  I am not as frightening as they say.

Come sit with your self-appointed father of the nation,

Pay no attention to these Western puppets that speak against the nation.

God has given me a long life,

All the better to preside over your lives.

They lie, those that say I am a dictator;

Imperialists that are my detractors.

Come sit and celebrate with your father of the nation,

Who will rule to save you from Western damnation.

The opposition puppets bark at my heels,

But I will still be alive when they are buried in the hills.

They say I crave adulation,

But have I ever forced you into subjugation?

All I want is a birthday party to celebrate,

Because it was you I was in prison to liberate.

Shake out the coins in your pockets

I only ask once a year for money from your pockets.

For what ruler in history ever funded his own celebration,

When the masses are ‘dying’ to show their jubilation?

I may be rich and that is as it should be.

As your father of the nation, I need to be.

Let us feast on your money with cake and wine

For what is yours is mine but what is mine is mine.

Emergency Taxi (ET) in Harare

The long queue snakes along the busy main road.

It is full of all sorts:  a woman carrying a baby on her back, a father in his suit and tie.

They wait patiently when the tout called Hwindi orders them to stop pushing.

No one knows who Hwindi is or who gave him permission to order people around.

Hwindis are all the same: if you don’t listen to them they throw you out of the queue.

An ET arrives, spitting out its last passengers from its small, fat belly.

Everyone knows the ET rules: two passengers in the front with the driver and sixteen or more at the back;

Children sit on the lap unless they pay full fare.

Hwindi has no seat and squeezes himself into the corner by the door.

Heavy goods are strapped on the roof, secured with strips from tyre tubes which stretch long and tight.

In seconds, all seats are full and the ET is on its way, weaving in and out of traffic at speed.

It is a very squashed affair inside, with strangers’ hips intimately touching in an uncultural fashion.

The small seats barely contain one half of a gifted African woman’s bottom, never mind two.

Feeling hot and squashed, the baby on the back begins to cry but there is nothing mother can do.

There is no room for mother to turn her head, never mind removing the baby from her back.

Batanidzai!  Hwindi instructs them to put their money together.

Row by row the passengers hand over two dollars each and forward it to the Hwindi in order.

Mukwasha ndisiyei pamusasa apo.  My son-in-law drop me off by the musasa tree, says the woman with the baby to Hwindi.

Who knows, maybe Hwindi will marry her daughter one day.

Hwindi instructs the driver who knows the exact tree at which to stop.

Further ahead, people line the road flagging down the ET as they desperately try to get home.

One ari ega!, shouts Hwindi. One man by himself, says Hwindi, in ET lingo.

If there is a couple or a family, only one of them can board this ET.

The ET slows down, door open, with Hwindi propping himself in the door way,

But everyone is with someone, so the ET doesn’t stop.

It carries on along the familiar route, door still open and Hwindi hanging out his head.

It stops down the road for the lady in a mini skirt and high-heeled shoes, but she looks away.

Voetsek! Piss off!  Hwindi shouts at her.  Hure remuHarare! Harare prostitute!  Stop wasting our time!

Hwindi has an amazing array of colourful language, enough to make a black man blush.

He thrives on the power he wields in the vehicle and will not be contradicted.

The ET is a taxi with neither the comforts nor expenses of one.

It stops exactly where you want, paCorner (at the corner) or pamaRobots (at the traffic lights).

It has no timetable and is likely to come in five minutes or ten or forty to pick you up along its route.

Beware if you are a lady wearing stockings, you are sure to have a ladder up your leg or a hole in your dress,

As a result of all the rough surfaces and improvised metal seats that wobble on the ET.

There are no seat belts in an ET except at the front,

For it is near impossible to strap on four or five passengers in a row.

If a road accident should happen, it is an ‘untimely’ death.

What choice does a poor commuter have?

Road accidents happen to the rich in their Mercedes and four-wheel drives too.